After a local college went Bigfoot hunting, a state senator introduced a bill nobody would have ever thought necessary

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In October, an investigative reporter at KRQE in New Mexico uncovered a University of New Mexico-Gallup expedition that sought to discover Bigfoot. While that sounds strange, even stranger is the fact that the wilderness adventure was funded by taxpayers. That expedition let to a bill by a state senator that decried that tax dollars cannot be spent on “looking for or catching a fictitious creature.” The bill defines a “fictitious creature” as “bigfoot, sasquatch, yeti, abominable snowman, pokemon, leprechauns or bogeyman.”

When KRQE first broke the story, the president of the university told the outlet that he didn’t know about the expedition “until [reporters] contacted [the university].” The station interviewed Dr. Christopher Dyer, who told them, “I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard it. I’ve had a rock thrown at me one night I think.” Professor Dyer held an on-campus conference in February of 2016 entitled, “Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior,” and following the conference, Dyer went hunting for the elusive creature. Taxpayers footed the bill for hotels, meals and mileage — a reported $7,458. State Senator George Munoz, who introduced the bill, said, “It’s sad that we have to do this […] and now we have to draft bills to stop [it].”